Do you remember the first time you saw the sky?
by J.A.Kishu
Summary: An unthoughtful comment of Peter hit s Neal hard and all he can do is run to be able to breathe again.


**Do you remember the first time you saw the sky?**

The conference room is only used by four people, Peter, Diana, Jones and Neal, they had a new case and hit a dead end. Their victim, found only two days before, wasn't able to make any useful statement. She had to be admitted because of a psychotic breakdown as she woke up but no one blames her for this. After being imprisoned for years, looked up in a cell in the dark everyone would need help.

"It must been horrible to be in this cell for years, without fresh air and in the hand of this psycho." Diana has a picture of the cell in her hand. A small room without a window, with an old matrass and a small toilet area, nothing else.

"It feels like you suffocate and-" Neal stops, he hadn't want to say something, or anything to this topic but he got the attention of the room.

"Neal you were in prison, there was a yard and you could look out of a window. Your situation was nothing to compare with this situation don't be so dramatic." As soon as Peter looked up he knows he had hurt Neal but he wasn't so sure why. Neal turns around and leaves the room before he can say something to stop him. A look from his colleagues tell him that he really had been insensitive and that he should fix it. The agent sighs and follows Neal.

* * *

Surprisingly it was very easy to find his friend. The elevator Neal had disappeared in was the only one moving, upstairs to the top. Peter follows and finds the door to the rooftop open. There he is, sitting on the cold concrete floor and looking up into the sky. Before Peter could say something Neal surprises him by speaking up first.

„Do you remember the first time you saw the sky?" Confused by this question Peter follows Neal´s line of view. Just the blue sky, some clouds and the sun to their left.

"No, it was most likely shortly after my birth as I left the hospital with my parents." Neal is still watching the sky motionless.

"I do remember it." Before Peter could question the memories of his CI a far darker revelation leaves Neal's mouth. "I was 12 years old and until this day I had been locked up my whole life in a dark place without a window to look outside. The sky was the first thing I really saw outside after I left the prison that had been my home since I existed in this world. After I stopped running I looked up and there was no celling, no lightbulb and most importantly no corner that shows me that my space is limited. There was only the open blue sky that welcomed me in the world and for the first time I felt alive. Not only existing but living."

Peter stayed silence, what could he say to this? He hadn't known and he doubt Neal would lie about something as serious as this. Suddenly the rude comment about prison in the conference room had a whole lot more weight and Neal´s hurt look and the quick deportation made lot more sense.

"I would have died when Mozzie hadn't found me when he did. I couldn't go inside a building for the first months or stay in one after this for more than a few minutes. A cold winter and sleeping outside was not a good thing when you want to live. He took me in, he found a way to get me away from outside, and the cold but it took him year to convince me to stay in a room with a closed door. Even more years until I could enter a cellar room without freaking out and having panic attacks." Finally Neal looked away from the sky and into Peter´s eyes. The agent can see into Neal´s soul, an open look the con desperately hides since they know each other is now open and visible for him. "Prison wasn't that bad, I knew I would get out, I always had a plan to leave, there were windows and I could go outside but I wasn't referring to prison."

"I´m sorry." Peter knows sorry doesn't cover it, any of it, his rude comment, Neal´s childhood any of it. All he can do is offering Neal his hand and to hope his friend would take it.

Neal takes a look at the sky before he let himself be pulled up by Peter so that they could go back to work and bring a criminal to justice who takes away someone's freedom and thinks he could get away with it.


End file.
